


The Best Laid Plans

by Draycevixen



Series: Christmas Charade [2]
Category: The Professionals
Genre: Angst, Christmas, M/M, Pining, Scheming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-30
Updated: 2012-11-30
Packaged: 2017-11-19 22:48:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/578466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Draycevixen/pseuds/Draycevixen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bodie has a plan for Christmas but even the best laid plans can go wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Best Laid Plans

.

He’d always intended to arrive fashionably late for the CI5 Christmas bash but not by two hours. He'd almost yielded to the temptation to put off seeing Ray until after Christmas but if there was one thing he wasn't, it was a coward. 

He'd been standing in the doorway, trying to spot Ray while avoiding the already drunken revellers, when he'd moved rapidly backwards to avoid a Conga line and stepped on Anson's foot.

“You bloody great oaf!”

“Happy Christmas to you too, Anson.”

Anson leaned heavily on the wall rubbing at his foot. “Thought you'd be dressed as Doyle.”

“What?” He glanced down at his clothes. “How many have you had already?”

“Not enough, think I'll need some more now as a painkiller.” Anson put his weight back gingerly on to his injured foot. “Have you seen Doyle?”

“Not yet, I've only just got here.”

“I'd wondered if we were having a fancy dress party and they forgot to tell me. He’s dressed as you.” Anson caught hold of his shoulder and turned him around. “There, see.”

Ray was talking to Cowley. It didn't take a detective's skills to spot what Anson was rabbiting on about. Ray was wearing a polo neck jumper and a pair of moleskin trousers that for once didn't look like they'd been painted on to him. There was even a matching jacket folded carefully across one of his arms. Putting aside Anson's fancy dress suggestion, there was only one other possible explanation for why Ray might be dressed this way. As he stared, Ray raised his head and locked eyes with him briefly before his head went down again and he leaned in attentively, like Cowley was explaining the mysteries of the universe. Bodie wasn't fooled for a minute. There was no mystery here. 

 

They'd both been stunned when it had finally sunk in that for the first time in their partnership, Cowley was giving them five days off for Christmas. They'd spent Christmas day the year before on a surveillance job, eating sandwiches made from tinned ham and stale bread and sloshing them down with lukewarm tea from a Thermos. 

Ray had been debating what to do with such a windfall, when he’d casually suggested that they take their current girlfriends away to his mate's cottage in Surrey. He'd regretted it almost the moment he’d suggested it, but Ray had been delighted by the idea and he just couldn't disappoint him. All he’d really wanted for Christmas was to spend it in Ray's company and he'd been banking on their having to work. He’d come to terms with the fact that he'd never have anything more with Ray than he already had, but the only thing worse than not being with Ray for Christmas would be to be penned up with him for five days while Ray played house with Stephanie. 

So, stage two of his plan had been formed that the night of the CI5 party, four days before Christmas, he would call Stephanie and Debbie and tell them that he and Ray had to work. Then he'd tell Ray that the girls couldn't make it. Five days with Ray all to himself, even five days just as mates, was all he wanted. When Ray found out about it after Christmas, as he inevitably would, Bodie planned on claiming that he'd gone off Debbie and hadn't wanted to spend his Christmas playing gooseberry to Ray and Stephanie. Ray would be mad but he knew Ray would forgive him in the end. 

 

He’d dressed for the party and then called the girls' flat to tell them the bad news only Stephanie hadn't been at all surprised. Ray had already called them and spun the same tale that Bodie had come up with, that they had to work after all. He’d hung up and sunk into an armchair. Ray was on to him. It had been two weeks since they'd first found out about the time off. He knew, if he were honest with himself, that in his excitement he'd been even more careless than usual about getting in to Ray’s physical space, touching him, palming that luscious arse in stairwells, leaning in closer than was really necessary to speak to him. And then, Ray had given Bodie his Christmas card. It hadn't been the jokey card he'd been expecting, the picture instead of a country cottage in the snow — “made me think of your mate's place” Ray had muttered —and it had been signed, _love, Ray._ He knew Ray was taking the piss, knew too that Ray hadn't intended to be unkind as he had no idea how Bodie really felt about him, but he still hadn't been able to keep the shocked expression off his face as he'd jerked his head up to look at Doyle. Ray had stared back for a moment before linking his hands below his chin, crossing his eyes and simpering “it's twue, it's twue.”

 

Compared to Ray's usual clothing choices Ray might as well have been wearing a burqa. It was all the confirmation he needed that Ray had finally realized how Bodie felt about him. What if Ray were already broaching the subject of a new partner with Cowley? He couldn't, wouldn't, lose it all, no matter what it might cost him in the process. He willed Ray to look up at him, for once surprised when the telepathy that existed between them worked as it always did and nodded back over his shoulder toward the corridor. Ray caught up with him at their office, Bodie closing the door behind both of them.

“You're late, Bodie.”

Ray was standing in the middle of the room, his jacket hanging over his crossed arms like a protective shield.

“I am.” Now that he had Ray to himself, he wasn't actually sure what he wanted to say. Should he apologize, try to bluff it out, try to pass it all off as a joke? 

“Before I forget, Bodie, Stephanie called and told me they won't be able to make it to the cottage as they have to work at the hospital, last minute thing. So you and I—”

“Should make other plans. Right.”

“I was going to say—”

“I called the girls to check on the arrangements. Stephanie told me that _you'd_ called it off, said that _we'll_ be working. Are we Ray? Has Cowley changed the schedule?”

“No... I...”

“Wanted to get out of it. I understand.” He stepped in closer. “So you worked out that I—” He couldn't tell Ray that he was in love with him, no matter how much he wanted to as he knew it would be the end of them. “—wouldn't mind fucking you. It doesn't make any difference. It hasn't made any difference. I wouldn't mind fucking Susan either and I'm pretty sure she knows it, but she still doesn't feel the need to—” He pulled quickly at Ray's polo neck, jerking his fingers back as Ray flinched “—cover up like a bloody nun around me. I have some self-control you know.”

“You want to _fuck_ me, Bodie, nothing else?” 

Ray had that look in his eyes again, the one that suggested he might still believe in Father Christmas. He wanted to kiss him, wanted to recite Donne for him, wanted to— “What else is there?” He made himself step in closer, clutching at Ray's arse through the unusually loose trousers. “Why, you up for it?”

He’d expected the hard hand to his chest pushing him back but counted his blessings that he wasn't spitting teeth. 

“No, I'm not.”

“Fair enough. I asked, you said no. You'd have been perfectly safe in Surrey, Ray. I had no plans to trap you in the inglenook screaming for your virtue like some Victorian virgin.”

Ray's eyes were boring a hole through the back of his head. He forced a jack-the-lad smile on to his face and punched Ray lightly in the arm. 

“Think I'll be off. All this talk of fucking's got me going and Debbie suggested I stop by later. I'll see you tomorrow, Ray. Let it go mate. I already have.”

Walking out of that room without turning around and begging was the hardest thing he’d ever done. 

.


End file.
